The Beginning of Something Old

Hello to all Public Relation companions. Better late than never to throw out my first blog and get the ball rolling. Roughly two months ago I started my Public Relations Internship workplace at the West Perth Football Club. Since walking through the door on my first day, I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment. Why you may ask? Well firstly, all staff members of the club are incredibly respectful, always happy to get to know you and make you feel as though you are one of the team. This is certainly off to a good start for my work placement; having a great team determined to achieve success for the club. Too cheesy? I think not. 

All steam ahead. Straight away my supervisor assigned me a major task for the club. This specific event is extremely important for the club, as it is the largest event for the season. In previous years this event was titled the West Perth Banquet Auction, however this year the whole event required a transformation. My supervisor threw me the reigns to essentially revamp and reinvigorate a night that had been on the decline in the past few years (obviously seeking comments and thoughts along the way). I was partnered up with one of the Board of Directors of the club, which is fantastic. It enables me to get an understanding of the clubs directions and future aspirations, but also to know that any ideas I have will receive the appropriate reaction as to whether it reflects the clubs direction or not. 

After the introduction with this Director, we got stuck into the concept. Remembering we want to completely change something that has been the same in the last three years or so. So the two of us went into a private room and we started brainstorming. Before we knew it, an hour had passed of just throwing ideas back and forth deciding what we believed would be a game changer and attract a wider community. Don’t get me wrong; the two of us continually acknowledged and reiterated two major issues associated with our ideas – change and financial capabilities. 

We understood the damage change can have to people, especially considering the previous years were based around the same idea – complacency settles in and when that takes hold, so does the restriction for people to accept change. In relation to change, a lot of guests that attended in previous years are more of the older age range (no disrespect intended), which from the clubs experience results in a lot of negative response. Change however is essential when things aren’t going too well, especially when the club is just passing through to the positive side of the accountant’s book. Therefore we decided that change is a necessity and therefore existing guests will just have to adapt and accept the new concepts. 

However, these wonderful and great ideas that kept rolling off the tongue also hit a crossroad – the budget. Of course there is a budget, this is the case with every event for every organisation (obviously varying depending on the type of organisation). We had a budget that isn’t of great numbers, which is expected for a not for profit organisation. So after listing and swapping our ideas, we separated them into ones that were reasonable and ones that were far beyond the price limitations. We of course still had to remember the main purpose of this event, make as much money as possible for the club. Being very optimistic for the events potential prospects, we ensured that certain goals and objectives had to be written down. Establishing a clear framework will enable us to reach certain objectives and targets on time, which will hopefully eventuate to a successful outcome – an outstanding Gala Dinner Auction (our new name for the event). 

So only after a couple of hours of establishing new and improved ideas, narrowing them down to fit within the budget as well as the direction of the club, we were able to provide a brief run down of the event with our CEO and my supervisor. Both seemingly impressed by our progress and ideas. There was also the tentativeness of how effective this change will be towards the existing members who attend on a yearly basis and whether the new ideas will encourage more guests. Important questions were directed at us as to why the need for change and the type of set up we desired, as well as how it aligns with our aspirations; The main reason for this was to answer the question, will it encourage a greater audience for Gala Dinner? And of course the ‘money’ question, how much is this rough plan costing us? I guess we shall find out. 

After day one, progress had been substantial. Walking out of the administration doors feeling like I have accomplished something and felt very positive and excited for this new challenge. Getting to know all the staff in the office and receiving that sense of trust and acceptance was also a great feeling. Setting a platform for this project was penciled in, now to just make it all happen.   

Till next time,

Samuel Money. 

Practice Makes It All

“Believe me, what you learn at school about a job is only a quarter of what it is in real life.” Newly graduated people often hear this sentence which aims at acting as a precursory immersion in the ‘real’ working world. Theory learning is, of course, essential to the understanding of a profession, but it does not make it all. The internship experience actually confirmed this conception, and was therefore a rich and intensive learning experience. What we learned during the 3 years at University is definitely more than useful, but practice in the ‘real world’ industry provides invaluable insights in the framework of a profession.

By Riccardo Cuppini

As for my personal experience in the public relations field in Mauritius, I learned a lot on the local framework given to the profession. The company for which I worked provides consultancy services in public relations and event management mainly. Therefore I had the chance to work on different projects coming from different types of clients or industries. One of the main insights I gained from my internship is on how media works in Mauritius. Several directions had to be followed when issuing information to the media so as to receive media coverage. The guidelines that I learned from Curtin are essentially influenced by the Australian media environment; therefore I had to adapt my understandings of how to deal with the media to the Mauritian context. For example, I had to translate several media releases, sent by our client Emirates, from English to French to suit the local media companies. Moreover, the format of the media releases was not as per the format that we usually used for our university assignments. I learned how to format a media release according to the Mauritian media context. Another example would be media monitoring activities. At Odysseus Public Relations, media monitoring was done in both offline and online media, and media clippings were essentially done in digital format to suit the clients’ needs. Practice made me relatively conversant with the Mauritian media rules and context.

Interviewing a client and pitching a communication project in real life was also one of the most insightful experiences of my internship. Doing so in an educational context was definitely a valuable formation, but evolving in the ‘real world’ of communication industries added another dimension to the importance of the task. I had the opportunity to interview a Marketing Manager who wanted to create a social media campaign for the company. This invaluable experience weirdly happened to be less stressful than the ones I did at university. Moreover, working on the social media campaign project with a colleague and pitching it to the client were other insightful steps which made me understand more how the public relations profession works. For this particular work experience, I shall reckon that all the communication plans that we did throughout the 3 years at university were of considerable help. Indeed, practice here made it all: both practice at school and at work.

University life is nearly finished, and practice in the ‘real world’ will surely soon turn us into efficient professionals.

Thanks for reading!

Sonia Monty

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